no, of course the govt is not responsbile for the hurricane hitting - that is a strawman defense - what people are pissed about is the govt's RESPONSE to this crisis and I think rightly justified just read what people actually there are saying...
The response to this has been pitiful. I keep hearing the president on tv saying that help is coming, but for those reporting from inside NOLA they say it is just getting worse. If you're going to declare the place an emergency before the storm even hit, then why not be prepared for an emergency response afterwards? I don't see how anyone can seriously say that the response to this disaster has been adequate.
Louisiana bears some responsibility for this, too. The risk has been there for 100 years. They've ignored it. I'm beyond frustrated. There are people sitting in the convention center who need help. There are cruise ships in Galveston that could be comandeered for tha effort, as they are near the River Market along the Mississippi. I don't understand why that's not being done right now. I don't understand why it wasn't already done. It is a huge challenge to get these people out of NOLA. I understand that. I would feel better if I saw more fruits of that effort, however. I'm not seeing that.
Your right. Well, partially right. It was predicted by everyone except for our government. Hell, just read the first couple of pages of the Katrina thread in the Hangout and see that people were predicting a worse case scenario for NOLA on the Saturday before the storm hit. People on a basketball website in Houston could see it coming but our government officials who get paid to serve and protect us couldn't? I gotta tell you. As a moderate Bush supporter, this week has been a very eye opening experience for me.
I really hate to be super insensitive, and my heart goes out to those in this time of need, but this should be a lesson for everybody. BE PREPARED! This kind of situation as rare as it may be does happen as we are seeing now. I'm so sick of everyone complaining about the government. I agree there should have been a better response to take control of the situation as it is now, however where is the personal responsibilty at? I hope and work hard everyday so that I don't need nor hopefully will never require the government to 'help' me. There was a mandatory evacuation from what I recall, and of those who couldn't or wouldn't leave they are in my prayers. Honestly, do any of you really want to rely on the government for help. Help yourself, prepare for these types situations have an evcauation plan. As easy as it is to say now I'm sure the city of NO collects or could have collected enough money on gambling and alcohol that could have done something about the levee instead of relying on 'the government'.
you're right. the times picayune had a nearly identical article back in 2002. literally predicted all of this. they knew the levees could only withstand Cat 3 hurricanes...they did nothing to change that. this is the result. i read articles on the net and in the Hou. Chronicle talking about this doomsday scenario, as well. the precautions weren't taken. plans were clearly not adequately made for response. and now i find myself greatly frustrated that the govt does not seem to be using all resources at its disposal, including private interests, to resolve this situation. another day for these people on the ground there is unthinkable. and everyday means another day without cleanup...without pumping the water out. false hope is a mistake. this city is not going to recover in our lifetimes. and the government needs to stop selling it. people are going to have to move on with their lives without the attachment that there will be a place for them in NOLA again. that sucks. but it's tough love. there is no way back. there is no economy there. there won't be for a very long time...certainly not soon enough for people to start realistically feeding their families there for quite some time. my guess is that in 12 months, roughly 100,000 people will be living in the greater NOLA area. from a metro area that previously was home to 1.7 million. that is beyond staggering.
the projections of what would happen to greater Houston in the event of a cat 5 aren't pretty either. a wall of water all the way to League City. many feet of water as far as the Galleria. and that's just related to storm surge, not rainfall. it would be ugly.
The people who couldn't leave are in your prayers but they should be more responsible? I sure they appreciate that. How is a 98 year old woman on a fixed income with no car and no family supposed to get out of town on 24 hours notice? Even if she makes it through the storm, is she supposed to be told to "go to hell, it's every man for himself" by the police who are supposed to be helping her 3 days later? I guess she should have just "been more responsible." Unbelievable.
Models predicted New Orleans disaster, experts say By Alan Elsner Virtually everything that has happened in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina struck was predicted by experts and in computer models, so emergency management specialists wonder why authorities were so unprepared. "The scenario of a major hurricane hitting New Orleans was well anticipated, predicted and drilled around," said Clare Rubin, an emergency management consultant who also teaches at the Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management at George Washington University. Computer models developed at Louisiana State University and other institutions made detailed projections of what would happen if water flowed over the levees protecting the city or if they failed. In July 2004, more than 40 federal, state, local and volunteer organizations practiced this very scenario in a five-day simulation code-named "Hurricane Pam," where they had to deal with an imaginary storm that destroyed over half a million buildings in New Orleans and forced the evacuation of a million residents. At the end of the exercise Ron Castleman, regional director for the Federal Emergency Management Agency declared: "We made great progress this week in our preparedness efforts. "Disaster response teams developed action plans in critical areas such as search and rescue, medical care, sheltering, temporary housing, school restoration and debris management. These plans are essential for quick response to a hurricane but will also help in other emergencies," he said. In light of that, said disaster expert Bill Waugh of Georgia State University, "It's inexplicable how unprepared for the flooding they were." He said a slow decline over several years in funding for emergency management was partly to blame. In comments on Thursday, President George W. Bush said, "I don't think anybody anticipated the breach of the levees." But Louisiana State University engineer Joseph Suhayda and others have warned for years that defenses could fail. In 2002, the New Orleans Times Picayune published a five-part series on "The Big One" examining what might happen if they did. SCENARIO LAID OUT It predicted that 200,000 people or more would be unwilling or unable to heed evacuation orders and thousands would die, that people would be housed in the Superdome, that aid workers would find it difficult to gain access to the city as roads became impassable, as well as many other of the consequences that actually unfolded after Katrina hit this week. Craig Marks who runs Blue Horizons Consulting, an emergency management training company in North Carolina, said the authorities had mishandled the evacuation, neglecting to help those without transportation to leave the city. "They could have packed people on trains or buses and gotten them out before the hurricane struck. They had enough time and access to federal funds. And now, we find we do not have a proper emergency communications infrastructure so aid workers get out into the field and they can't talk to one another," he said. Most of those trapped by the floods in the city of some 500,000 people are the poor who had little chance to leave. Ernest Sternberg, a professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Buffalo, said law enforcement agencies were often more eager to invest in high tech "toys" than basic communications. "It's well known that communications go down in disasters but people on the frontlines still don't invest in them. A lot of the investments that have been made in homeland security have been misspent," he said. Several experts also believe the decision to make FEMA a part of the Department of Homeland Security, created after the September 11, 2001 attacks, was a major mistake. Rubin said FEMA functioned well in the 1990s as a small, independent agency. "Under DHS, it was downgraded, buried in a couple of layers of bureaucracy, and terrorism prevention got all the attention and most of the funds," she said. Former FEMA director James Lee Witt testified to Congress in March 2004: "I am extremely concerned that the ability of our nation to prepare for and respond to disasters has been sharply eroded. "I hear from emergency managers, local and state leaders, and first responders nearly every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well with has now disappeared. In fact one state emergency manager told me, 'It is like a stake has been driven into the heart of emergency management,"' he said. Underlying the situation has been the general reluctance of government at any level to invest in infrastructure or emergency management, said David McEntire, who teaches emergency management at the University of North Texas. "No-one cares about disasters until they happen. That is a political fact of life," he said. "Emergency management is woefully underfunded in this nation. That covers not only first responders but also warning, evacuation, damage assessment, volunteer management, donation management and recovery and mitigation issues," he said. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/weather_katrina_criticism_dc&printer=1
can someone please tell me why reliant/minutemaid/hell even toyota and the summit aren't open? i understand some of htem have games going on. but frankly the city built them. they need to be opened. i understand it'll be a mess to clean but frankly right now i think the overwhelming majority of us would agree that its necessary. secondly why can't they just build huge tents in the parking lot of the dome?
Something that I know in the back of my mind is really coming to bear here. Americans have an implicit trust that the government can handle any emergency, so if we get in a fix bad enough, the feds will clean it up and bail us out. It's not true. The abilities of the government are finite. They can't handle emergencies. New Orleans and the Feds were overwhelmed by Katrina and Pontchartain. Houston will soon be overwhelmed by the challenge of taking in so many refugees. With every terrorist attack, flood, earthquake and every other disaster, government will not come through for you. My wife would say, Trust in God. RoxRan would say, Look after you and yours. I guess I'm saying, Sometimes, you're just screwed. It's sad and frustrating, but I think it's true. If we gave the government even 5 more years and then hit San Francisco with a massive earthquake, will they do any better there than they're doing in New Orleans? My guess is no.
ummm....heat stroke...heat exhaustion.. its mid 90s out there with a heat index of over 100...and that isnt even factoring in the increased heat due to the hot concrete.
are you f*ckin' kidding me?!? "commendable"???? this type of scenario should NEVER be played out on American soil. period. we knew for several days (years) before katrina hit that this thing would cause MASSIVE destruction. the second the storm passed, relief should've been flying in by the truck load. and dont you think they should've planned BEFORE the hurricane hit??? in times like this, the government is all the people can depend on for relief. for them to be so poorly prepared is completely unexcuseable. go back to your fantasy world.
It's hard to believe some people are still saying this. I understand some people will blindly support their political party, but come on. I'm not blaming Bush here, I'm blaming the response as a whole. To call this response commendable is a joke and an insult to the victims. Take off your blinders for a second guys and take a look at what is happening.
Which government is actually being blamed here? The federal or the state government? Or some regional governmental entities? Or all of the above? Whose primary responsibility would it have been to prevent damage (whether this was possible or not) and to provide disaster recovery measures? I am asking because I do not know. Most people seem to automatically assume that it is a federal responsibility.
The Summit is a church now, and Reliant and MMP are in the middle of a season. These people are looking for a place to stay for longer than just a few days. It wouldn't do much good to give them a place to go then only a few days later tell them they have to leave because a game is about to start.
All some of you people do is b!tch all day long. How about you quit b!tching on an internet message board and go help out.
Bush could fly back to Washington in the middle of the night to sign legislation for a brain-dead woman for political reasons, but the day the Hurricane hit, he is playing golf ? on Tuesday he is playing guitar with country music stars? perception is reality - America needs Bush to be the strong leader he was after 9/11, we aren't getting that and the people there feel that that vacuum
I dropped off two huge bags of clothing, towels and blankets at the collection point at Bellaire High School yesterday, and I've donated $50 to the American Red Cross. I've earned my right to "b****", as you call it. bigtexxx....how have you helped out so far?
